Bryn & Smiffy

Me and Matt have been talking about getting a dog for a while now, but we have both agreed that we work long hours, love our holidays etc so it's not really the right time to get one. The thing is though I absolutely love animals and feel like I've been missing out on all the happiness that pets can bring, so we have opted for two male guinea pigs instead!!

See attached pics of little Bryn and Smiffy (characters from Gavin & Stacey) Bryn is the ginger one.

They are adorable and have brought us lots of laughs with some of their antics! I have had guineas before but I'd forgotten how funny they really are! Because they are only babies they have a lot of energy and do a lot of jumping about (aka popcorning) this can only be described as popcorn going off in the microwave. They just spring up into the air and then run off with a little squeak, it's hilarious!

they also love tube to run through, stacks of fresh hay to munch, and just chewy things in general, not to mention a healthy supply of fresh greens every day!!!

Anyway see attached pics of the little critters, Bryn and Smiffy Looby :-)

Going to the Chapel

Hey folks - sorry it's been a while, once again not a great deal going on other than the every day razzmatazz! That said we do have some big news, and that is that, Gavin & Stacey is back on tonight at 9pm!!

No seriously, we have finally booked our wedding for Friday 29th October 2010. We will be having a Civil Ceremony (it could turn uncivil depending how much Matt and the best man have to drink the night before!) and it will be held in Hull.

Preparation is already underway, lists have been made up, frocks have been purchased and colours have been agreed!!! It's all extremely exciting, and to be honest i didn't realise just how much I wanted to marry Matt.

We are both looking forward to it, unfortunately we cannot invite everybody to the ceremony but we will be inviting as many people to the evening reception as we can (afford!!) Invites will be going out after Christmas so I will be contacting you all after Christmas for your addresses.

On a more mundane note, not a great deal else going on at the moment.
We will soon be celebrating my 40th Birthday, me and Matt are going to York and staying over at a nice hotel and then going out to dinner in the evening, so really looking forward to that, I've also got a night with the girls which my beautiful bezzy Anna has been busily organising, can't wait for that either, there are quite a few of us going so that should be a giggle! So many social events to attend in December, and so few outfits to wear!!!

Matt has been very busy too with his new websites that he is helping to design, and playing his new PS3 game, and spending every other spare minute on the internet. We have also been watching the Sex and the city box set that Nicola kindly lent to us the last time we were over there, it is a fantastic series and I would urge anybody to watch it, it is embarassingly hilarious at times, but really good fun and entertaining to watch.

Matt got a new SLR camera for his birthday but we haven't had much opportunity to get out and use it yet, so no interesting pics on Flckr just yet (watch this space)

Anyway, that's about it from me... more on the wedding to follow in the coming months (for those of you that are interested ;-))

Haystacks

We missed a month of blogging again but to be fair (to both of us!) we have been extremely busy over the last couple of months. It just seems to be work , work and more work at the moment which is why this weekend , or the one just gone by the time most people are reading this, it was great to get away from it all and get some proper back to basics walking, eating and of course drinking in the glorious Lake District. We joined forces with Stew, Kirsty and loads of teachers and headed off to Braithwaite where we set up camp for 2 nights. The teacher/walking combination thing is a bi-annual affair for Stew and Kirsty but for us it was a first but definitely won't be the last!

We rocked up at about 7pm and met up with the school folk, who are a lovely bunch; they ranged from maths teachers, PE teachers, teacher assistants and more. I wasn't a big fan of teachers when I was at school but then I don't think anyone is really. This bunch were great though, they made us feel really welcome from the off. It helped that we went to an Indian and sank a few beers on the first night too, as you can't get much better than that really ;0)

We stayed in a kind of lodge cum hostel just outside of Braithwaite with proper bunk beds and everything! After a curry and some beers I was absolutely whacked so we turned in for an early night. Apparently we missed the entertainment which consisted of a reenactment of Mama Mia but the Hull version. It's called Mam I'm here, if you say it in a Hull accent you'll see why it's funny. Some of the girls are part of an amateur dramatics society and they have actually performed this to paying customers. I couldn't comment as I didn't see it, but it sounded like everyone was enjoying it, as we heard plenty of laughs and shrieks. At least I assume that was what the laughs and shrieks were for.

So, we rised and shined at 8am to a hearty cooked breakfast, and then before we knew it we were off in the car to Buttermere to begin the walk! Now we've been to the Lakes a few times before with Steen and Nicola but we have always escaped walking because a) the weather has been crap, b) we haven't made it past the pub, c) the weather has been crap, d) we've not made it past the pub and d) all of the above. So we were quite looking forward to actually doing a walk in the Lakes (at least I think we were!).

So we headed off from the carpark and started a gentle climb up a path-like track. The track soon became a steep, rock strewn path and after about 30 minutes we were about 3 miles high! Seriously, it was a baptism of fire! The path was really steep and it turned into more of a climb than a walk. We had quite a few short stops early on and when we turned to look at the view behind it was stunning (see below). I think we were all quite shocked (except Wilko, our guide, who had done the walk before) at how fast we ascended.


Once we got to the top, the way forward flattened out and we reached the edge of the plateau. This really showed off how high we were, I think it was about 2200ft, and it was certainly a lot cooler than when we started. After a short pause we then headed across a slate quarry to a stone hut in the middle of nowhere and it was time for lunch! (N.B. the last two paragraphs actual took about 3 hours of straining, huffing and puffing, but I though I'd summarise it)

After lunch we headed off towards Haystacks, the main goal of the walk. This is/was Alfred Wainwright's favourite part of the lakes and he described it as 'standing unabashed and unashamed in the midst of a circle of much loftier fells, like a shaggy terrier in the company of foxhounds’. Not sure I'd agree with that description, but it's definitely worth a look. The ascent to Haystacks was nowhere near as steep as the initial climb but it was still tough. This part of the walk was a lot busier, in fact I heard one party who were resting comment that they should have brought more tea and biscuits to sell to the masses!

Another rest at Haystacks and we started the descent. Now this part was actually the toughest part and really hard on the knees and calves. You're constantly leaning back so you don't go tumbling down the hill and take everyone else with you! We could actually see the carpark where we started after a while, but even after walking for 30 minutes it didn't seem to be getting any closer.

Sure enough though, after about another hour we made it back to the flat ground and were soon sat back in the car, aching like hell and wishing for a sauna. After a short drive we were back at the lodge with a cracking cup of tea in hand. It was a great walk, with many ups and downs, geographically and mentally, but one I'd love to do again. The evening soon began with a walk to the local pub and a HUGE 3 course meal, with a bonus piece of cake from the birthday party next door. Plus there was some top quality real ales including Theakstons. All in all a top night! Needless to say we missed the cabaret again as we were so tired.

Well that's about it now, I'm just catching the final of the snooker on BBC2, Michelle has collapsed in bed; I think she'll need to be ambulanced into work tomorrow as she's struggling with her legs!

Adios,

p.s. Did I forget to mention that we are off to Portugal next weekend for a week in the autumnal sun?? Woo Hoo!

Gadgets Gadgets Gadgets

Well it's finally here.... and it's about time to! Check out the new site , www.ispy-gadgets.co.uk

Spy Gadgets Spy Gadgets Spy Gadgets

Check out this link to a new website that a "colleague" of mine is working on. Please visit and add it to your bookmarks. Keep your eyes peeled for the launch date which will be publicised on this blog.

Click here for iSpy-Gadgets.co.uk

A blog is for life...

You've all heard the saying a dog is for life not just for Christmas, well I feel a bit like that with our blog really. I've totally neglected it since we got home, for no other reason than; what is there to write about that anybody might be interested in and also just having the time.
I keep in touch with most people by FB nowadays,and on occasion actually manage to meet up with people face to face!!

There just isn't enough hours in the day for work, family, friends, loved ones etc..

We're settling into a Brough life, it took a month or so for me, as I do enjoy being in the city with lots of pubs, shops and restaurants on your doorstep, however the drive into work is now much easier and only take abut 7 minutes, as opposed to the 30 minute drive from Hull. Matt on the other hand settled straight in and loves getting the train in. The only thing the place lacks is a decent Indian Take Away, and any restaurants, it's very limited. Brough is an old place, but it has grown quite quickly and the infrastructure has not kept up with it. We have two supermarkets, 3 pubs, a charity shop, betting shop and some estate agents, and that's it really. Still we are only about 12 miles from Hull so we're not totally cut off.

We have finally managed to start saving, although we haven't got nearly enough to even contemplate a mortgage yet. At the moment the most we can borrow is around 85% of the property value, and even though the house we have had our eye on has just been drastically reduced by 15k we still don't seem to be any nearer to owning our own home. We have got the English wank, I mean bankers to thank for our predicament!!

For those of you wondering about our wedding plans, we have none ;-) we are going to get a house first and then plan a peter and Jordan style do!!

We have now made friends with our French neighbour, who has actually turned out be be very hospitable. She has invited us into her Orchard style garden to help ourselves to plums and apples, she still won't let us move our sat dish back though.

We're having a "quiet" weekend at home this week, well it was supposed to be but Matt is on call (which then means so am I) and he's not had the easiest of times bless him. Especially the call at 4.30 this morning when he had to get out of bed and log on to fix something. Talk about the 4th emergency service. He is an unsung hero!

Last week we got the train out to York and spent the afternoon in a few of York's finest beer gardens. It was a lovely sunny afternoon (I can hear the gasps of disbelief) and we had a really nice day, we finished with a curry in Akbars. Famous for their ginormous nan breads. For any of you that watch Hell's Kitchen with Gordon Ramsey you will remember his visit to Akbars in Bradford. Well they now have a successful chain of restaurants in the North. It never ceases to amaze me though when people order a side portion of chips with their Indian food. And then when the waiter comes across to take their plates and they start telling him how good the food was, but they talk really loud and animated as though the waiter is completely illiterate and does not speak fluent English. There was a group of lads in when we were there who had just come from York races. You can spot them straight away, all dressed in their dad's suits with their hair coiffed and gelled, and shiny slip on shoes with buckles on (puss in boots style!) Anyway this group of lads were all of the above, chip scoffing, shouting, gesticulating, shiny shoe wearing tossers, who couldn't grasp how to eat with their mouths closed. It was like dining with a group of camels!
When the waiter came across one of the camels said "F**ing-lovely-that-pal. I-go-to-the-one-in-Sheffield" (referring to another Akbars)(note the use of the hyphen to emphasise the mono tone in which he spoke to the waiter,as if he were mentally retarded)

We are back off to York again next weekend, as Matt's mum and dad are coming to visit our new place. We are doing the touristy thing and going to the Railway museum followed by afternoon tea at Betty's!!

Everybody needs good neighbours....

Peas and Rice (Cockney rhyming slang for Jesus Christ!) we've got another blog on! It's only just over a week since our last blog; anyone would think we were travelling again (more on this later). Well we've moved into our new house, it's not ours really it's our landlords but it might as well be ours, and we've just about settled in. The aerial man has just left after moving our satellite dish for the 2nd time in a month, again more on this later.

I think we're both getting a bit sick of a) renting and b) moving as it's the 2nd move within 12 months, more than a lot of people have moved in the last 12 years! It's not the actual being in different places that bothers us (or me anyway!) as we both love seeing different places as you probably know, if we didn't this blog probably wouldn't even exist. No, it's the upheaval of everything we own, and a few things we don't, (sorry about taking that frying pan, I really did think it was ours!) from one place to another. When you're travelling, moving everything you own from one place to another, is a piece of p*ss as it's on your back, but when you've been living in a flat for 12 months you tend to accumulate a bit more clobber. TV, iMac, Wardrobe, sofas, guitar(s), clothes, etc., etc. We haven't got nearly as much stuff as most people but it's still a chore. We had to get the company who made our wardrobe to come and dismantle it and get a separate "man with van" to move all the other shi... sorry stuff. Then there's all the bills, accounts, magazine subscriptions to change address details over , the list goes on and on. Anyway, the amount of times we have moved over the last 10 years is well into double figures. We both worked out that between us we've lived in about 20 places in the last 10 years. When I say places I mean different abodes, rather than different towns/villages/hamlets! So you'd expect us to be naturals at moving. Well to be honest, it's probably a less stressful experience than some people have , but still a pain.

So onto the Satellite dish. When we moved in there was an existing satellite dish on the front of the house which we plugged into our Freesat and everything was dandy. Then after a couple of days of pouring rain suddenly the picture went. And I mean completely went! Couldn't even get Come Dine with Me on More4. So, I asked around and got Al's mate from work, or rather Al from work's mate. He came round one evening tested different cables, different positions (for the satellite dish!) and to cut a long story short, we settled on a place about the kitchen window.

All was going well, until our neighbour (SHE IS FRENCH!!!!) returned from a trip away (to FRANCE) and knocked on the door. After the pleasantries exchanged; "hello I'm your new neighbour", "Hello I'm Matt", "Hello I'm rfaiurehriuhf (some French name)", "there's a problem with your satellite dish", "No there isn't, Al's friend came round to fix it, look it's a brilliant picture, come in I'll show you....", "Yes there is a problem , it's on my wall","...look the picture on HD is brilli.....WHAT???? YOU'RE WALL? SILLY FRENCH BAS.....". And it turned out that the upstairs of the house, doesn't match the downstairs of the house and our satellite dish was about 3mm (actually about 18 inches) on her side of the house. I tried reasoning with her and said "well it's not really doing any harm though is it? It's only a satellite dish" but apparently it is a problem and would you mind moving it please because I'm trying to sell my house, and I'm sure the kind of people who want to buy my house wouldn't want a satellite dish on their wall. So I had to get Al's mate back round and he moved it to the opposite end of the house, as far away as possible from the French side of the house!

Now I know that neighbours are extremely petty when it comes to territory but I did think she was being a bit over the top! I don't know whether it is the French blood as I know they are suckers for bureaucracy or the fact that she is just an arse but it's all sorted now. To be honest I would probably have been p*ssed of if someone had put a satellite dish on my wall whilst I was away on holiday but I like to think that I'd be reasonable once the initial shock had wore off and realised that it was a genuine mistake! Oh well!

Anyway, I mentioned travelling at the start of this and we're off on our hols again, to Askrigg in the Yorkshire Dales. It's really close to Hawes where they make Wensleydale Cheese (Oh No Grommit , it's the wrong trousers!) and Black Sheep Ale. So you can guess what we'll be doing for the majority of the week. We're heading off on Saturday morning and hopefully by Saturday afternoon will be troughing on Wensleydale and swigging Black Sheeps'

So there you go , there's a good end to this blog, hopefully I'll have some non-French related stories to tell you in a week or so.

Au Revoir!

p.s. Oh yeah I forgot, we live in Brough now, pronounced Brough. It's about 8 miles from Hull right next to the Humber Bridge! It's a lot more rural here, although "The Avenues" is also pretty rural this time of year what with all the trees out.

They're Grrrrrreeeeeeaaaaatttttttt....

Just a very quick blog to say well done to the Tigers for surviving their first season in the Premiership. I know they lost against the Dirty Reds (Man Utd) 1-0 but hey, they fought well and thoroughly deserved it! Once again Well Done to Phil Brown and the team.

Adios,

Laurel and Hardy

Well we've been in our new gaff for just over two weeks now, and I have to be honest and say I'm still not settled 100%.
It's a really nice place, but it just doesn't feel like home just yet.

The move all went very smoothly, it's been events since we got in that have been unfortunate...
The house came furnished with white goods (fridge freezer, range cooker and a washing machine(!)) which was quite a positive as the flat we were moving out of had all those things too so it saved us (or so we thought it would) quite a bit of money!
It's amazing how you see things differently once you actually move in...
The washing machine was like something out of Steptoes yard, the cooker has never seen a brillo pad, let alone be acquainted with any type of cleaning fluid, and the fridge feezer was so small it belonged in a dolls house!
So first things first, I set about cleaning the cooker (this is after me and my mum had spent most of the 1st day cleaning cupboards, floors and cobwebs from every surface in the place)
3 bowls of black washing up water later and I had finished the hob top, it was minging!! that was without even looking on the inside! Anyway I guess you get the picture??
After I'd get that little unenviable task out of the way, I decided I would take out the old piece of scrap metal aka the washing machine, in preperation for the new one arriving later that day, Matt was still in bed and to be fair wasn't the least bit interested in cleaning / installing new appliances.
I went under the sink and turned off the water supply to the washing machine, pulled out the machine and proceeded to unscrew the connection hoses. First one came away with no problem, the 2nd one was like a Laurel and Hardy moment, water shot out into my face, and within seconds I was drenched. I quickly attempted to screw the pipe back in place, but as you'd might have guessed, it wouldn't go back on properly and water continued to spray everywhere. I panicked, and quickly got back under the sink thinking that instead of turning the water off, I'd actually turned it on. So I turned the tap in the opposite direction and went back to the leaking pipe, to try again. Same thing happened!!
I was breathless, both from panic and the volume of water thar had hit me full on in the face, and also from the amount of water that was leaking everywhere in the kitchen. I didn't have a clue what to do, so I threw all the bedding that was waiitng to be washed into the pools of water, adorned myself in rubber gloves and dashed outside to try and find the stop cock. I couldn't find it!!!! By this point I decided it was no good, I had to get Matt out of bed. He was not happy and proceeded to call me names that I will not repeat!!! This just upset me even more, in fact it actually upset me more than the water!!!
I went next door to ask the neighbour where the stop cock (all the while water pissing out) but she was away on holiday!!
Surely things can't get any worse... Oh yes they can!!
I called Yorks Water to be told they couldn't get anybody out for two hours...
At this stage we were really desperate so Matt started knocking on a few doors to see if anybody knew where the mains water supply was. As luck would have it there was a dear little old lady who has been a resident of the house a few doors up for over 25 years and was very familiar with every stop cock in Brough, ours included.
She pointed and told us it was under that car??? The car of our next door neighbour who was on holiday in France!!!!!
Anyway the long and short of it is, that the old woman knew who was looking after the neighbours property and they had they keys to her car, the car was moved the water supply turned off and we eventually got the new washing machine connected and, two weeks later we have just about dried out!!
We have had other incidents since we moved in too, involving some unwanted biting visitors, but I don't really want to talk about that :-(

It has cost us a small fortune this move, we have got more furniture than DFS, It's good to have something to call our own at last.

There are some cracking locals in the area too, the best one is a bit far out really, it's almost 100 yards door to door, with a pizza shop en route!
We have sampled just about every guest ale they have had on in the last fortnight, in fact I am starting to get a thirst now just thinking about it...

Moving house

Does anybody still read this blog??

Well I can't even remember the last time I blogged, too busy on Facebook to blog.
So as the subject of the blog suggests, we are moving on again, unfortunately it doesn't involve quitting our jobs and purchasing RTW tickets. No it's just a few miles down the A63 to Brough.
Reason we're moving to Brough is to be nearer to my place of work, as an hour driving every day is getting on my nerves. I know this is nothing compared to what some of the cockenys do, but hey we're not cockeneys!!!
The new place is really lovely, Bridge Cottage, set on the railway embankment, we've even got an outdoor patio area too, which will be great in summer. It will be quite a novelty after living in flats for as long as I can remember.

Work is keeping us both busy, despite this massive recession we're in. We have both been extremely lucky (it doesn't always feel that way) in keeping our jobs, and we have both got friends and family who have lost their jobs :-(
The leisure world is picking up now and we are reaping the benefits of the £ being so poor against the Euro, as everybody decides to holiday in the UK and get back to some good old family camping. If anybody is looking for any camping gear etc check out our website at www.discover.co.uk we have got some great deals on at the moment!!

Our next holiday is only about 6 weeks away, we've rented a beautiful little cottage in Askrigg, The Dales. It's where they filmed It shouldn't happen to a vet. There's lots of nice walks and lovely little pubs that serve traditional ales and home cooked food, mmmmmmmm!!

We're surrounded by boxes now as Thursday is our last night in Park Avenue, it will be sad to leave as we have been very happy here, but we're also looking forward to pastures new. You know it's time to go anyway when you find mouse droppings and half a packet of Jacobs Cream Crackers missing from the cupboard!!!

Will try and get back into this blogging...

Thank (credit) Crunchy it's Friday!!

Do you remember that advert "Thank Crunchie it's Friday?"

Oh Sh*t! We missed a month of blogging! In our world of blogging Feb 09 doesn’t exist. It was a pretty bad month anyway, more on later, so no point dwelling on it.
Well we’ve been back from our fantastic trip to Sri Lanka and I can honestly say it was a well earned rest. It was almost a year to the day that we had touched down from our 10 month jaunt around the world and it was good to be on the road again. After a gruelling flight of 600 hours we landed in Colombo airport with not a Tiger in sight. Now usually when you’re on a package holiday there’s loads of reps hanging around rounding people up on minibuses and carting them off to their allocated resort. Not here, we wandered around the ample-sized arrival lounge for a few minutes, exchanged some money (£10 to be precise) and generally looked lost. After a while I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a smartly-dressed chap standing near the exit, holding a little red card. We sauntered over and sure enough he was our Virgin Rep; when I say Virgin, I mean Virgin holidays, he wasn’t a virgin, well I don’t think he was, but he might have been. Anyway, it’s irrelevant!

But as they say “all good things come to an end” and the holiday feeling certainly doesn't last long these days does it? Especially when you come back to a country (or even a world) that is in the worst economical situation since god knows when. Still I can’t help wondering that it’s been on the cards for a while, what with this spend, spend, spend mentality that seems to be the done thing these days.

Anyway, there’s loads of stuff going on at the moment; at work, I won’t talk about it on hear as it’s depressing, and on the home front too! Yes, we’ve got to move again, although it’s no fault of our own. We’re hopefully moving to a gaff in Hessle, which if you ask anyone at work, is absolutely miles away from town, but for those of us who travel and indeed commute (more than a bus-ride anyway!) it’s about 17 minutes door-to-door. When I say door-to-door, I mean literally door-to-door. I can fall out of bed , straight on a train, stumble up St.Jamesons St, and into Comet House. It’s also a lot nearer to Michelle’s work so she’s happy about that.

I haven’t really got a great deal more to say. Things are still ticking along, nothing really interesting happening, everyone seems to be buttoning down the hatches and trying to power through this credit crunch. Hopefully I’ll have more to talk about next month when we’ve moved, and will be waiting for our next holiday.

Adios,

Flying High...

Well it's almost a year to the day that we've been back and it's time we were off again. We fly out to Sri Lanka on Saturday from Heathrow for 2 glorious weeks of no work, eating curry, sun bathing, no Facebook, drinking, no work, swimming, lazying around, and oh yeah no work!

See you in 2 weeks. Adios.